Bohemia Interactive PAA PAC

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PAA, PAC

• Format Type : Image
  
• Endian Order : Little Endian
  
• Signatures : GGATCGVA / GGATCXAM / GGATSFFO / GGAT
  

Format Specifications

// PAA / PAC file format
// Based on https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/PAA_File_Format

// IMAGE HEADER
  2 - Image Format (65281=DXT1, 65282=DXT2, 65283=DXT3, 65284=DXT4, 65285=DXT5, 17476=RGBA4444, 5461=RGBA5551, 34952=RGBA8888, 32896=Gray with Alpha)
  
// TAGS
  // for each tag
    4 - Tag Header // "GGAT"
    4 - Tag Type String  // e.g. "CGVA"
    4 - Length of Tag Data
    X - Tag Data
    
// PALETTE
  2 - Number of Colors
  
  // for each color
    1 - Blue
    1 - Green
    1 - Red
    
// MIPMAPS
  // for each mipmap
    2 - Width
    2 - Height
    3 - Image Data Length
    X - Image Data
    
    if (ImageFormat == DXT# && width&32768 == 32768){
      // image data is LZO Compressed
      }
    else if (ImageFormat != DXT#){
      // image data is LZSS Compresed
      }
    else {
      // raw image data
      }

Notes and Comments

• This file format occurs in games from Bohemia Interactive.
• This file format supports several tag types:
  • AVGCTAGG / GGATCGVA (AVGC / CGVA) - average colour
  • MAXCTAGG / GGATCXAM (MAXC / CXAM) - color of brightest pixel in texture?
  • FLAGTAGG / GGATGALF (FLAG / GALF) - marks if texture contains transparency
  • SWIZTAGG / GGATZIWS (SWIZ / ZIWS) - optional swizzling description
  • PROCTAGG / GGATCORP (PROC / CORP) - non ASCII string
  • OFFSTAGG / GGATSFFO (OFFS / SFFO) - mipmap offset list
• Image data can be compressed with RLE, LZO or LZSS.

Games

List of games using this file format:

• Argo
• Arma 1
• Arma: Armed Assault
• Arma 2
• Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead (*.PAA / *.PAC)
• Arma 3
• Operation Flashpoint

QuickBMS Script

Not written yet.

Compatible Programs

• BI Tools
  • Texture Viewer (TexView2) from BI Tools - it can convert and view PAC/PAA files
  • Texture Merger (texMerge) from BI Tools - it can merge PAC/PAA/TGA files and save them as TexMerger files (PTM files)
  • Pal2PacE from BI Tools - command line tool for texture conversion (more info here). It can convert JPG/PNG/TGA to PAA/PAC and PAA/PAC to JGP/PNG/TGA files.
  • Oxygen 2 from BI Tools - model editing tool with support for processing PAC/PAA textures
• DePac
• ImageToPAA (from Arma 3 tools)

Gallery

• 

  Texture Viewer (from BI Tools)

• 

  Texture Merger (from BI Tools)

See Also

• Pal2PacE (community.bistudio.com)
• PAA file format (community.bistudio.com)
• PAA file format (pmc.editing.wiki)